Silver has used up all big-picture targets going back to a time when a single ounce sold for less than $4, leaving us with only sketchy 'extension' targets along the C-D leg. They project possible 'D' resistance at 81.240 or perhaps 82.295, but I see little practical value in these numbers, let alone a reason to short them. It is a severe bear-squeeze that is driving quotes in the first place, and no one can say with confidence how high it will go. As a practical matter, however, you can't go far wrong taking some profits if you've held silver or its equivalent from lower levels. Once you've done this, it will become easier to decide how much exposure you want to retain. Keep in mind that when the ballistic ascent finally breaks, the plunge will allow no easy escape, much less a good profit-taking opportunity. Even if it should come from a high of, say, $150/oz, there might be no exit possible for the first $50 of the fall.
My best wishes to you all for the holiday season and the New Year. May you and yours enjoy good health, prosperity and serene contentment in 2026. My regular weekly commentaries will resume with the edition scheduled for publication on Sunday, January 4. In the meantime, trading 'touts' (see below) will update as usual late Sunday afternoon.
I've modified my outlook and coordinates following last week's punk performance and am now projecting more downside to the 72,756 target shown. However, the short-term picture would brighten moderately if the bounce from Friday's low exceeds 87,903. Thereafter, a pullback to 87,236 would signal a (very) short-term buy with a possible ride to as high as 89,236. Bitcoin's violent swings may seem fearsome, but they make it paradoxically easier to read. Nearly all of the highs and lows are tradable and turn out to have had a Hidden Pivot reason, including Friday's bottom, which occurred a micron (i.e., 0.02 percent) from a voodoo number. _______ UPDATE (Dec 28, 9:57 p.m.): Bitcoin took off with no pullback, negating our plan to get long. Does this vehicle not even trade between Saturday at 4:00 p.m. and Sunday at 6:00 p.m.? Who can keep track of such things?
February Gold has a clear path to at least 4532.70 over the near term, a midpoint Hidden Pivot resistance. Price action there cannot but provide an accurate 'read' on trend strength, as well as a reliable idea of the speed and likelihood of a further rally to the conventional pattern's 'D' target at 5132.20. That is likely to be an important number for gold, and we shouldn't assume the futures will surpass it. That would leave gold well shy of the fantastic heights long predicted for this bull market by some seers. _______ UPDATE (Dec 23, 9:15 p.m.): Tonight's easy move through the 4532.70 target advertised above has shortened the odds that the rally will continue to at least 5132.20, a potentially important Hidden Pivot target.
Silver's ballistic ascent has left it out-of-synch with gold, which looks months away from a potential bull-market top. At the rate Silver is climbing, it could hit a correspondingly important target at 70.810 by Christmas. Since we should always have an alternative target lined up, I would need to create an extension with the C-D leg, shifting 'A' to the November 21 bar whose bottom is 48.710. We'll wait until 70.81 is hit before doing so, but be prepared for a significant (and tradable!) pullback when the target is hit. _____ UPDATE (Dec 23, 3:47 p.m.): The $2.07 pullback this morning from within 1.5 cents of the target billboarded above was brief and nasty, but it could have been worth as much as $10,000 per contract to anyone who traded against the trend. Silver's subsequent swift reversal to the upside suggests there is no stopping it. It has since traded within four cents of the 71.83 target of a much larger pattern aired here earlier, but only time will tell how much stopping power this major Hidden Pivot shows. _______ UPDATE (Dec 23, 9:34 p.m.): Silver futures have traded 47 cents above a 71.73 target that comes from the weekly composite chart. Visually, the overshoot is inconsequential, and the target itself, although imprecise because it comes from a blended chart, is too compelling to write off as yet. I'm, done projecting higher targets for the time being, however, since there are no bullish patterns remaining in any time frame that I like.
The widespread notion that a U.S. president can significantly influence the economy is mistaken. In observable fact, the broad cycles that bring us good times and bad, booms and busts, are vastly larger and more powerful than the presidency, too overwhelming to even affect, let alone command. Even the radical policies of Roosevelt's New Deal were insufficient to end a depression that had taken more than a generation to gather force. America's eventual emergence from those very hard times happened gradually during the administrations of Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy. Moreover, the post-war rebuilding process that made Europe and Japan America's best customers arguably would have happened cyclically without a Marshall Plan, and the U.S. financial system would have receded naturally from the fiscal excesses of a war that itself was an uncontrollable cyclical event. In this view, Kennedy, Clinton, Obama and Biden were simply lucky to have been elected with the economy and the stock market at cyclical lows. For in no way did they cause the upswings that shone on their terms in office, nor the felicitous shifts in the mood of consumers. The bullish cycle had to have been particularly strong to survive the misbegotten policies of Obama, the first president to revile American exceptionalism, if not America itself. Surfing the Big Wave Which brings us to Trump, the president who has come closest to affecting the economy both inside and outside the U.S. Trump inherited a fiscal blowout impelled by the covid hoax, but he has since turned it into a credit and fiscal bonfire that can only end in ashes. Trump has merely extended an especially powerful upswing that he did nothing to cause. It should have ended with the senile Biden and his autopen administration, but Trump's aggressive economic activism kicked already booming asset values
The chart shows the entire, insufferable month that Bitcoin speculators have spent jerking off, all of it in the context of a bear market that has lopped 36% from the value of the cryptocurrency so far. The closest downside target lies at p=81,163, a midpoint Hidden Pivot support associated with a 'D' target at 67,685. That last number is my worst case for the next 2-3 weeks. There is another Hidden Pivot at 73,076 mentioned here earlier that could provide support, possibly just temporary.
With its weak point 'A' low and its obviousness, the pattern shown should not be considered reliable for predicting a precise top. However, it can still serve us in several ways. For one, the easy move through p has shortened the odds of a rally to at least D=135.90. Also, a pullback to the green line would trigger a 'mechanical' buy sufficiently enticing that we should not want to miss it. And if p2=123.76 shows stopping power, that would validate the pattern itself and its target. ______ UPDATE (Dec 20): Bulls further distanced this vehicle from the red line last week, increasing the likelihood that the 135.90 target will be achieved. A pullback to the green line (x=99.49) in the meantime, however unlikely, should be viewed as an opportunity to get long or to augment an existing position 'mechanically'.
I hesitate to call Bitcoin's laborious 36% selloff from the $126k top in mid-October a correction, since there's a good chance it's in a bear market and that it will never exceed that high. That will almost surely be the case if stocks have entered a bear market. It would likely be the worst since the 1930s, creating an investment environment in which a purely speculative hobgoblin such as Bitcoin could never survive, let alone flourish. Trump's MAGA narrative would also be a casualty, since merely scraping by, rather than achieving greatness, would become the central concern of most Americans. Regarding the weekly chart that I've displayed this week, it leaves little room for doubt that Bitcoin's selloff will continue down to at least d=73,076. Moreover, a rally from current levels to as high as the green line (x=112,993) would trigger a 'mechanical' short, presumably amidst high-fiving by Bitcoin fans excited by the possibility of new record highs. ______ UPDATE (Dec 17, 5:13 p.m.): I've posted some finely nuanced downside targets in the chat room that are actionable. Check 'em out!
Just one more push could exhaust a bull market that is coming up on its seventeenth year. Although that's only about three dog years, it equates to about 120 human years. In fact, no other bull market has lasted even remotely that long. The next-oldest, birthed at the low of the October 1987 Crash, was 13 years old before a crash in tech-sector stocks ended the dream for millions of investors grown stupid on greed. Could it happen again? Only a fool would ask that question. My recent commentaries have warned with increasing shrillness that stocks are in a topping process. I have purposely left the details vague, since bull-market tops are notoriously full of deceptions. However, the chart above provides a compelling number for the party to end, a 7492 Hidden Pivot target for the E-Mini S&P futures that lies 8.6% above. Last week featured the second straight Friday on which bulls and bears did little more than screw the pooch. Usually, Fridays are fun, or at least interesting, for one group or the other. But lately it's been like watching a heavyweight slugfest that turned bloody in the seventh round. Bears have lacked the guts to deliver the haymaker, but the buy-the-dips junkies, who have been winning on points since 2009, seem too fatigued and lacking in conviction to counterpunch. Thus did stocks fall to end the week, although not enough to worry anyone, much less spook the herd. Paralyzed by Doubt All the excitement was in gold and silver, which have been rising since early 2024 in a steepening trajectory. The uptrend is practically vertical now and in need of a rest. But that is not how bull markets work, as many bulls are discovering. Although they've been praying for a big move for years, now that
